


The perils of being late

by RembrandtsWife



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: M/M, elfsmut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-25 23:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/RembrandtsWife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aragorn has never been attracted to mortals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The perils of being late

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written and posted to Livejournal in January of 2003, after seeing _The Two Towers_. It was inspired by the brief scene where Aragorn, after some solitary adventures, finally shows up at Helm's Deep, only to be greeted by a certain snarky Elf with the words, "You're late."

”The royal maiden looks on you with the eyes of love.”

Aragorn, busy putting an edge on a pile of old and not very impressive swords, stopped for a moment, confused. Legolas had spoken in the elvish tongue, and for a moment Aragorn thought he had spoken of the lady Arwen, whose name indeed meant ”royal maiden”. But why should Legolas speak of her in this time and place, hundreds of miles from Rivendell in the burrow of Helm’s Deep?

”You mean the king’s sister’s daughter,” he said after a moment. One hand resumed running the whetstone up and down the blade with unstudied grace. ”Eowyn.”

”Eowyn.”

Aragorn glanced at Legolas, who was sorting good blades from bad, making piles of swords, axes, mailshirts. He did not see the arch expression on the elf’s face that he had expected. Young as he was in the years of his own people, Legolas still found mortals rather amusing, and did not always hide his amusement wholly.

”The eyes of infatuation, mayhap,” Aragorn replied. He turned over the sword in his lap and started on the other edge of the blade. ”I am but a dream to her–one who seems kinglier than an aged uncle, a dead cousin, or a disgraced brother.”

”To an elf, a dream may seem no less than reality, as mortals understand it.” Legolas paused, looking up from the mail shirt he had been examining. ”The lady Arwen may have such dreams of you, but you are a man. Your dreams are like vapor, and she is far away. If you wanted the king’s sister’s daughter, you could have her. For a night, or for a lifetime.” 

Aragorn’s hands stopped again. He looked at Legolas. ”You know me better, I think, than to believe I would dishonor the lady Eowyn so. Not by taking her for a night and leaving her, nor by taking her heart for a lifetime–when I could not give her mine.”

Legolas bent his head to the mail shirt again, seeking for defects with shrewd fingers. Aragorn put down the sword he had been honing and picked up another from the heap Legolas had set aside for him.

”I know you better,” Legolas said presently, ”than to think you are tempted by Rohan’s lady. Mortal beauty has never called to you, has it?”

Aragorn looked up. The elf’s head was tilted, and now that arch smile played about his lips.

”No.” Aragorn plied the whetstone diligently.

”Only elvish beauty.” Now the elf’s voice came from right behind him, and the elf’s hands were on his shoulders. Pale, smooth, slender hands with nearly twice the strength of his own.

”I cannot give my heart a second time. Not to any.”

”I do not ask your heart. Nor can I give you mine. But I have much to give besides.” The smooth elven hands pressed deeply, shrewdly, into the tension of Aragorn’s shoulders.

Aragorn finished honing the sword and put it down upon the heap of ready blades. He rose and went to the door of the chamber. It led only onto a short corridor that led to a flight of steps. They were deep within the fortress; the walls of the tiny storeroom were living rock.

Aragorn locked the door. As soon as he turned, Legolas was in his arms, a slim blade cutting into his need, a white flame devouring him.

When he could speak again, he smiled. ”Be gentle with me, son of Thranduil. I am but a man.”

”I will try not to break you, son of Arathorn.” The smile was all in the elf’s cool blue-grey eyes.

Aragorn wondered if he would at once burn and drown in Arwen’s touch like this. The elf’s kisses on his lips, his breast, his manhood stole away his mind and left a lingering sweetness behind. Legolas smelled of the wet leaves and summer flowers of the forest of his birth, and his body was as smooth as any maiden’s, yet not like a maiden’s–hard and bright and smooth like the swords Aragorn had been sharpening. Yes, Legolas was more like a sword than like a flower. The hands that turned Aragorn around and bade him brace himself against the wall had the calluses of a bowman despite their fineness.

Trust the elf to have some elvish concoction that would ease the way. It had never been so easy between men, at least as far as Aragorn could remember. It was long and long since he had yielded to another this way, but Legolas made it easy to yield, and possible to yield without surrendering. How warm the elf’s flesh felt within him! The heat suffused his whole body.

Between men it was always rough and quick. With Legolas it was gentle and prolonged. Aragorn was made to wonder if he could bear so much pleasure for so long. At last that hard, fine hand wrung his release from him even as he received the elf’s pleasure, and they sank to their knees together, Aragorn with a groan, Legolas with a sigh.

Aragorn felt the elf’s keen gaze upon him as he laced up his breeches and pulled on his tunic. He did not expect Legolas to come and stand before him, to touch with one hand the silver pendant that never left Aragorn’s breast.

”You are not merely a man, Aragorn. You are Elessar, the Elfstone. And you shall have my loyalty, and my people’s, not merely for the lady Arwen’s sake, but for your own.”

Aragorn thought long on that as Legolas sorted the weapons and he sharpened the blades of old swords.


End file.
